情欲与性冲动，如同其他有关人的问题一样，都是复杂而困难的问题。如果教育者自己都没有深入地探讨过这个问题，明白它所牵连的种种含义，他如何能帮助他所教育的人呢?如果父母或教师自己都陷于性的漩涡中，他又如何指导孩子呢?如果我们不了解这整个问题的意义，我们能帮助孩子吗?教育者在传授对性的了解时，态度有赖于他的心境。他是温和清静，或是因自己的欲望而心力交瘁?
为何对我们大部分人而言，性，是个充满混乱和冲突的问题?为何它成了我们的生活上的一项主宰力量?主要原因是我们没有创造力。而我们之所以缺乏创造力，是因为我们整个社会与道德的文化以及我们的教育方法，均是以智力的发展为基础。性问题的解决，在于了解创造力并非借着智力的发生作用而得以产生。相反，唯有当智力静止时，才有创造。智力，以及作为智力的心灵，只能重复、回忆，它不停地制造新的字眼，重组旧有的字眼;由于我们多半是经由头脑来感觉、来体验，于是我们便只生活在字眼里，生活在机械式的重复中。显然这不是创造。而由于我们没有创造力，因此我们仅存的唯一创造方式，便是性。性是属于心智的，而属于心智的事物必须得到满足实现，否则便有挫折。
我们的思想、生活是袒露的、贫弱的、肤浅的、空洞的。在感情上，我们贫乏;在宗教上、智力上，我们重复旧调，沉闷无聊;在社会上、政治上、经济上，我们被组成集团派别，受到操纵。我们不是快乐的人，我们没有生命活力，我们不是高高兴兴的。在家庭、事业、教堂、学校之中，我们从来不曾体验到一种创造性的存在状态，在我们每日的思维和行动中，我们内心深处并不曾解脱。我们受到四面八方的围困，性自然成为我们唯一的发泄之途，成为我们一再追逐的经验，因为性能在刹那间给予我们那忘我的快乐状态。构成问题的，并不是性，而是想要重复快乐状态，想要获取性或任何其他的欢乐，并使其持久不逝的那种欲望。
我们真正渴求的是这种遗忘自我的强烈热情，这种把我们自己与使我们完全沉浸于其中的事物视为一同。因为我们是渺小的，微不足道的，而且是痛苦的根源，因此在意识中或无意识中，我们想要将自己迷失于个人的或集体的兴奋状态下，迷失在高超的思想里，或在某种粗陋的感官刺激之中。
创造的生活障碍之一便是恐惧，而顾全体面是此种恐惧的表现。顾全体面的人，受世俗道德所束缚的人，对生活的深刻意义是无所觉察的。他们被自设的道德围墙所关闭而无法超越。他们那种有色玻璃的道德是基于理想和宗教信仰，与真实毫不相关。一旦他们藏身其中，他们便生活于自设的迷惘世界里。顾全体面的人，虽然有自设的道德使他们心满意足，然而他们也是生活在混乱、不幸与冲突之中。
恐惧——它是渴求安全的结果——使我们附和顺从，使我们模仿，使我们屈服于控制之下。因此，恐惧阻碍了创造的生活。创造的生活是生活于自由之中，也就是说无所恐惧;而唯有心灵不陷于欲望以及欲望的满足中，创造的状态才能存在。唯有以细心的注意力观察我们的情感和心智，才能拆解欲望的秘密存在方式。我们越是体谅、仁慈，心灵便越少受欲望的支配。唯有当爱不再存在，感官的刺激才成了使人心焦的问题。
要了解这项感官的刺激问题，我们就必须从教育上、宗教上、社会上、道德上各方面去面对它，而非只从单一方面去了解它。由于我们如此猛烈地强调感官的价值，感官的刺激便几乎成了我们唯一重要的事。
经由书本、广告、电影、以及其他许多方式，形形色色的感官刺激不断地受到强调。政治上或宗教上的盛会、戏剧和其他各种娱乐，这一切都促使我们在生活的个层面去寻求感官的刺激，而我们却欣然接受。肉欲及其各种形式都得到发挥，然而与此同时，贞洁的理想却受到鼓励。因此在我们的内心形成一个矛盾;奇怪的是，这项矛盾本身反成了一种兴奋剂。
唯有我们对感官刺激的追求——这是心智的种种主要活动之一——加以了解，那么，欢乐、激奋和暴力才不会在我们生活中成为一项具有支配力的角色。因为我们没有爱，所以性、对于感官刺激的追求，成了一项使人精疲力竭的问题。当爱存在，贞洁便存在。然而，一个设法“贞洁”的人却不是一个贞洁的人。德行与自由同在，一旦了解了现在存在的事物，自由便出现了。
在我们年轻时，我们有强烈的性冲动，我们大部分人都以节制或戒律来处理这些欲望，因为我们以为如果不加以限制，我们会变得淫荡好色，贪求无厌。有组织的宗教对于性道德特别注重，然而却允许我们以爱国的名义从事谋杀与暴力的行为，沉迷于妒嫉和狡诈无情，追逐着权力与成功。为何这些有组织的宗教对于性道德特别注重，然而对于贪婪、剥削和战争不加以攻击呢?这不是因为有组织的宗教是属于我们所创造的环境中的一部分，因此他们借着我们的恐惧、希望、妒嫉与分歧而得以存在吗?因此，宗教和其他各方面一样，心灵也被它自身欲望的投射所禁闭了。
倘若对于欲望的整个过程没有深入的了解，则今日存在于东西方的婚姻制度，对于性问题是无法提供解答的。爱并不起于婚姻合约的签订，也不是基于双方满足的互换，或相互间的安全与舒适。所有这一切都是属于心智的范围，这也就是为什么爱在我们的生活里只占据着极小地位的原因。爱是不属于心智范围的，它完全不依赖思想及其狡猾的计算、自我保护的需求和反应。当爱存在，性永远不会是个问题——缺乏了爱，问题便产生了。
造成问题的是心灵的种种障碍和其逃避方式，而非性或任何其他特定的事故。因此，重要的是了解心灵的过程，它的趋向和厌弃，它对美与丑的反应。我们应该观察我们自己，观察我们自己是如何对待他人，以何种态度面对男人和女人。我们应该明白，一旦为了一个人的自尊自大，家庭被用作自我延续的手段，它便成为分裂隔离以及反社会活动的中心。家庭与财产一旦立足于自我及其使人日趋狭隘的欲望和追求之上，便成为权利与控制的工具，成为个人与社会之间冲突的来源。
这些有关人的问题，其困难之处，在于作为父母与教师的我们，变得如此烦闷厌倦、绝望沮丧，完全陷于混乱和不安中。生活沉重地压在我们身上，我们想要得到慰藉，想要被人所爱。我们自己的内心贫乏无能，又如何能给予孩子正确的教育?
这就是为何问题的重点不在学生，而在于教育者。我们的情感和心智都需经过洗涤，才能教育他人。如果教育者自己内心混乱，歪曲不正，限于他自己欲望的迷宫之中，他如何能传授智慧，帮助他人纠正生活之道?然而，我们并非是靠专家来了解和修理的机器，我们是一连串的影响和事件所造成的结果，每个人都必须亲自去拆解他自身的混乱而加以了解。
EDUCATION AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE CHAPTER 7 ‘SEX AND MARRIAGE’
LIKE other human problems, the problem of our passions and sexual urges is a complex and difficult one, and if the educator himself has not deeply probed into it and seen its many implications, how can he help those he is educating? If the parent or the teacher is himself caught up in the turmoils of sex, how can he guide the child? Can we help the children if we ourselves do not understand the significance of this whole problem? The manner in which the educator imparts an understanding of sex depends on the state of his own mind; it depends on whether he is gently dispassionate, or consumed by his own desires.
Now, why is sex to most of us a problem, full of confusion and conflict? Why has it become a dominant factor in our lives? One of the main reasons is that we are not creative; and we are not creative because our whole social and moral culture, as well as our educational methods, are based on development of the intellect. The solution to this problem of sex lies in understanding that creation does not occur through the functioning of the intellect. On the contrary, there is creation only when the intellect is still.
The intellect, the mind as such, can only repeat, recollect, it is constantly spinning new words and rearranging old ones; and as most of us feel and experience only through the brain, we live exclusively on words and mechanical repetitions. This is obviously not creation; and since we are uncreative, the only means of creativeness left to us is sex. Sex is of the mind, and that which is of the mind must fulfil itself or there is frustration.
Our thoughts, our lives are bright, arid, hollow, empty; emotionally we are starved, religiously and intellectually we are repetitive, dull; socially, politically and economically we are regimented, controlled. We are not happy people, we are not vital, joyous; at home, in business, at church, at school, we never experience a creative state of being, there is no deep release in our daily thought and action. Caught and held from all sides, naturally sex becomes our only outlet, an experience to be sought again and again because it momentarily offers that state of happiness which comes when there is absence of self. It is not sex that constitutes a problem, but the desire to recapture the state of happiness, to gain and maintain pleasure, whether sexual or any other.
What we are really searching for is this intense passion of self-forgetfulness, this identification with something in which we can lose ourselves completely. Because the self is small, petty and a source of pain, consciously or unconsciously we want to lose ourselves in individual or collective excitement, in lofty thoughts, or in some gross form of sensation.
When we seek to escape from the self, the means of escape are very important, and then they also become painful problems to us. Unless we investigate and understand the hindrances that prevent creative living, which is freedom from self, we shall not understand the problem of sex.
One of the hindrances to creative living is fear, and respectability is a manifestation of that fear. The respectable, the morally bound, are not aware of the full and deep significance of life. They are enclosed between the walls of their own righteousness and cannot see beyond them. Their stained-glass morality, based on ideals and religious beliefs, has nothing to do with reality; and when they take shelter behind it, they are living in the world of their own illusions. In spite of their self-imposed and gratifying morality, the respectable also are in confusion, misery and conflict.
Fear, which is the result of our desire to be secure, makes us conform, imitate and submit to domination, and therefore it prevents creative living. To live creatively is to live in freedom, which is to be without fear; and there can be a state of creativeness only when the mind is not caught up in desire and the gratification of desire. It is only by watching our own hearts and minds with delicate attention that we can unravel the hidden ways of our desire. The more thoughtful and affectionate we are, the less desire dominates the mind. It is only when there is no love that sensation becomes a consuming problem.
To understand this problem of sensation, we shall have to approach it, not from any one direction, but from every side, the educational, the religious, the social and the moral. Sensations have become almost exclusively important to us because we lay such overwhelming emphasis on sensate values.
Through books, through advertisements, through the cinema, and in many other ways, various aspects of sensation are constantly being stressed. The political and religious pageants, the theatre and other forms of amusement, all encourage us to seek stimulation at different levels of our being; and we delight in this encouragement. Sensuality is being developed in every possible way, and at the same time, the ideal of chastity is upheld. A contradiction is thus built up within us; and strangely enough, this very contradiction is stimulating.
It is only when we understand the pursuit of sensation, which is one of the major activities of the mind, that pleasure, excitement and violence cease to be a dominant feature in our lives. It is because we do not love, that sex, the pursuit of sensation, has become a consuming problem. When there is love, there is chastity; but he who tries to be chaste, is not. Virtue comes with freedom, it comes when there is an understanding of what is.
When we are young, we have strong sexual urges, and most of us try to deal with these desires by controlling and disciplining them, because we think that without some kind of restraint we shall become consumingly lustful. Organized religions are much concerned about our sexual morality; but they allow us to perpetrate violence and murder in the name of patriotism, to indulge in envy and crafty ruthlessness, and to pursue power and success. Why should they be so concerned with this particular type of morality, and not attack exploitation, greed and war? Is it not because organized religions, being part of the environment which we have created, depend for their very existence on our fears and hopes, on our envy and separatism? So, in the religious field as in every other, the mind is held in the projections of its own desires.
As long as there is no deep understanding of the whole process of desire, the institution of marriage as it now exists, whether in the East or in the West, cannot provide the answer to the sexual problem. Love is not induced by the signing of a contract, nor is it based on an exchange of gratification, nor on mutual security and comfort. All these things are of the mind, and that is why love occupies so small a place in our lives. Love is not of the mind, it is wholly independent of thought with its cunning calculations, its self-protective demands and reactions. When there is love, sex is never a problem – it is the lack of love that creates the problem.
The hindrances and escapes of the mind constitute the problem, and not sex or any other specific issue; and that is why it is important to understand the mind’s process, its attractions and repulsions, its responses to beauty, to ugliness. We should observe ourselves, become aware of how we regard people, how we look at men and women. We should see that the family becomes a centre of separatism and of antisocial activities when it is used as a means of self-perpetuation, for the sake of one’s self-importance. Family and property, when centred on the self with its ever-narrowing desires and pursuits, become the instruments of power and domination, a source of conflict between the individual and society.
The difficulty in all these human questions is that we ourselves, the parents and teachers, have become so utterly weary and hopeless, altogether confused and without peace; life weighs heavily upon us, and we want to be comforted, we want to be loved. Being poor and insufficient within ourselves, how can we hope to give the right kind of education to the child?
That is why the major problem is not the pupil, but the educator; our own hearts and minds must be cleansed if we are to be capable of educating others. If the educator himself is confused, crooked, lost in a maze of his own desires, how can he impart wisdom or help to make straight the way of another? But we are not machines to be understood and repaired by experts; we are the result of a long series of influences and accidents, and each one has to unravel and understand for himself the confusion of his own nature.
